


Broken Dreams

by Severina



Category: Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Community: tamingthemuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-07
Updated: 2013-07-07
Packaged: 2017-12-17 23:42:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/873256
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Severina/pseuds/Severina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This isn't the way she imagined her life would turn out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Broken Dreams

**Author's Note:**

> Written for LJ's tamingthemuse community, for the prompt "Great Barrier Reef"
> 
> * * *

This isn't the way she imagined her life would turn out.

She had plans, her and Elizabeth. They used to dream of backpacking through Europe when they graduated, then hitching a ride on a charter flight and spending six months in Australia. She worked two jobs in her junior year, bought an expensive camera and started experimenting with her photography. She pictured herself swimming with Lizzie at the Great Barrier Reef, selling her work for a travel guide or a tourist brochure, lounging on the sand. Maybe having a fling with a sweet boy with a sexy accent.

Carol lays the washcloth beside the basin, reaches with trembling fingers to the small piece of coral resting on the shelf. Her souvenir from Elizabeth's solo trip to Oz, taken two years after Carol dropped out of college. Two years after Carol met Ed. Elizabeth came back with entrancing tales of her adventures and this tiny piece of brightly coloured coral as a gift, and they had sat on the back porch of the little house in Newnan that she was renting with Ed. They had laughed and drank too much beer and reminisced about their college days while Ed slumped in the chair in the darkened living room and Carol tried to pretend that his sullenness didn't bother her. 

That night, after Lizzie waved drunkenly to her from the taxi, Ed hit her for the first time.

Carol folds her fingers around the coral, feels the edges dig into her palm. Remembers Elizabeth's face the first time she showed up to a lunch date with bruises on her arm, and the second time, and the third. Remembers how Lizzie tried to talk to her and then just talked at her and then just stopped talking altogether. 

Carol sighs, replaces the coral on the shelf. At first Ed letting her keep the souvenir used to confuse her. Finally she figured out that it was just another way to remind her that he was in charge, a way to reinforce to her that the grocery store and the market and church was the furthest from him she was ever going to get. Not that she had anywhere to go, any friends who would give her refuge. Ed made sure of that, too.

She rinses the washcloth, winces when the water swirls away tinged with blood. Then she looks at herself in the mirror with a critical eye. The cut isn't that deep and the swelling has gone down, but her cheek will be starting to purple in the morning. She knows she'll get some strange looks in the morning from the other mothers when she drops Sophia off at the bus stop for kindergarten, so she runs through her list of excuses. Ran into the bedroom door in the middle of the night won't work, because she used that one with little Rebecca's mother last month. Carol glances over her shoulder at the tub, nods once to herself. She mentally practices the dialogue – _oh, I'm such a klutz, I was taking a shower and slipped, hit my head on the faucet, I'm starting to think I should start wearing a crash helmet_ – and nods again. It will do.

Carol turns off the light, starts down the hall toward the sound of Ed's snoring. She hesitates in the darkened hallway, her fingers playing lightly on the wallpaper, until she finally retraces her steps, flicks the bathroom light back on and reaches for the coral. She leans over and lets it drop from her fingers, watches it tumble into the garbage can and vanish beneath the used tissues. 

This is the life she has. And holding on to dreams from the past doesn't do her any good.


End file.
